1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of computer-human interactions and more particularly to the configuration of a user interface to facilitate computer-human interactions through the user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Contemporary computing applications, particularly those deployed across the enterprise, have become complicated, feature-laden systems. The increased functionality of computing applications all too often can result in overly difficult to navigate user interface. At the very least, with the increased functionality of a computing application, the end user can be presented with additional application options within the user interface, and such operation can require extensive training on behalf of the typical end user. Worse yet, to the less technically adept end user, a more complicated user interface can seem overwhelming. By comparison, to the experienced end user, the complicated user interface can seem unnecessarily slow to navigate.
Developers remain painfully aware of the rising issues associated with the increasing complexity of their applications. In response, a number of solutions have been presented, all of which have been universally implemented in some combination and in varying degrees. Of the known solutions to the increasing complexity of computing applications, the use of help files represents the predominant solution. In the help file solution as applied to markup language defined user interfaces, a help icon can be associated with any page in the user interface. Occasionally, context specific help can be provided for explaining particular aspects of the user interface, but frequently such context sensitive help components merely refer the end user to a specific portion of the primary help file. In any case, such files do not directly input data into the user interface.
It will be recognized by the skilled artisan that help files as a general proposition and by necessity, are designed to be both thorough and complete in their documentation of the features of the user interface. As such, help files can be expansive documents whose navigation can be slow and cumbersome. Moreover, navigating a help file to an appropriate section can require advanced knowledge of the problem at hand. Where the beginning user poorly understands the nature of the problem, it is possible that an inappropriate section of the help file can misguide the beginning user in addressing the problem. Thus, help files can introduce as many problems as solutions for the beginning user.
Once a help file has been unsuccessfully consulted, guesswork remains the only recourse available to the end user. This can be the case particularly where the cumbersome and slow nature of the help file has discouraged ongoing use of the help file. Consequently, many users simply guess at required input values in a user interface which can result in both error and frustration. Even when a legal set of values are found through guesswork, those values are often poor choices, and are very seldom optimal. Using guesswork, the end user simply can navigate the user interface through a process of trial and error—or more appropriately, trial and error messages! The application of blatant guesswork hardly can be viewed as the ideal mode of interacting with a computer application. Discovering the error in interacting with a component of a user interface only after the end user has provided the interaction can potentially cause damage to the system. Moreover, to undo unintended changes performed in consequence of the error can consume valuable time and resources. Thus, repeated errors in user interface interactions can consume valuable time and can discourage the use of the computing application.
To protect the inexperienced user from incorrectly interacting with a user interface, particularly in respect to critical options presented through the user interface, default selections can be established for the critical options. Additionally, restrictions and requirements can be applied to selected fields of the user interface. Still, the establishment of default selections, restrictions and requirements seldom are explained. Moreover, default selections typically represent acceptable input, not optimal input. In any case, the end user typically remains unaware that their interactions with the user interface may have accepted the default position pre-programmed for elements of the user interface. Worse yet, in the case of an incorrect interaction, only a generic error message may be presented.